Johnston Family

After last year’s bumper crop of foreign trips we had intended to do much less this year but that good intention didn’t really work out (not my fault, Ed). March saw us in Las Vegas proving to ourselves that our first impressions of the place in 1975 still held good, might try again in another 35 years or so. April and May were much better; we went with Fleur and Keith to Washington followed by Williamsburg and then Philadelphia which we reached by driving along the Blue Ridge Mountains, all quite wonderful and conceived as part of Keith’s 40th birthday celebrations. These seem to have gone on and on and on throughout the year, having started in February with an 80’s themed party at St Martins graced by the presence of Freddy Mercury and Brian May (the Salmons)… In June we took Rory to our time share in Benalmadena for a week of vegging out, timed to coincide with the completion of yet another set of examinations, and from that point on we were at home until August and our annual trip to the joys of the Edinburgh Festival. We gave ourselves a slightly longer trip this year with two overnight stops on the way north in order to visit Castle Howard and Bamburgh Castle, and an extra day in Edinburgh that proved conclusively to us that can no longer cope with eight consecutive days of fringe performances plus the book festival plus catching up with old friends. Are we getting old or what? In October we gave ourselves a few days in Madrid in order to visit a couple of galleries (Thyssen Bornemisza and the Sorolla House) that we were unable to fit in last year, and as before we enjoyed the tapas bars and draught vermouth. Later in October we joined a cruise to the Canaries on the Independence of the Seas out of Southampton to help celebrate Graeme’s sister Karen’s 50th birthday (she doesn’t look a day over 40, dammit, Ed). There were eleven of us there, ages from about thirteen up, and we had a splendid time doing not too much during the day and getting back together for dinner. We went ashore in most ports to potter about (he means recreational shopping, Ed) but had a pleasant excursion in Madeira where we were obliged to descend from the mountaintop (hyperbole, Ed) in a wicker basket propelled at great speed down a very shiny tarmac road. Finally, in November, we managed a quick trip to Paris to celebrate Judith’s birthday and visited a huge Monet exhibition at the Grand Palais.

Within the UK we fitted in a trip to Southampton in January where Graeme was to be a witness in an eBay fraud trial; sadly, the perp changed his plea to guilty just before G. was due to step into the witness box. In March we visited the young laird in Derby, in May we had a wonderful trip to Sissinghurst where we stayed at the Sissinghurst farmhouse now managed by a friend of a friend and in September we stayed at the Bear in Woodstock so that we could visit Blenheim Palace yet again.

The bulk of the year, in between holidays and trips, has been consumed by building projects both at our house and at Fleur and Keith’s. We had thought it might be efficient to use the same builder for both so that work could move between the two houses as it fitted the builder’s schedule; in the event, not quite true. At St Martins the swimming pool had come to the end of its life and as we found out once it had been emptied it was much more comprehensively bu**ered than we had known. Demolition started in February and we were out of the ground with foundations complete, concrete floor beams laid and the last vestiges of the pool hidden under tons of hardcore the same month though there was about a ten day window when, for a suitable consideration, we could have disposed of bodies in the deep end. A month later we had the bricking complete and the side windows in place; if only the builder had ordered the correct roof that might have been there as well… The delay occasioned by that allowed work to start at Edmund Road on the construction of a porch plus a fair bit of internal work at which point Fleur and Keith found themselves living with a large hole between their living room and the street. From then on the work continued slowly and fitfully in both locations, the mess and lack of progress at Edmund Road eventually persuading Fleur, Keith and Indie the kitten to move in with us for a month. On one occasion Judith returned home covered in plaster from a ceiling that had collapsed on her, possibly due to over-vigorous painting (could happen to anybody with muscles, Ed). To be fair, our builder has strengths that we appreciate; he is tall enough to work on ceilings without using a stepladder, can leap buildings at a single bound and he is extremely flexible about the work so that he was able to take on board numerous scope changes (he means afterthoughts and additions, Ed). So, we now have several new doors and windows, rebuilt fences, wraparound terraces at St Martins (one is helipad size, Ed), six large raised flowerbeds, a raised vegetable patch, a new shed, a small greenhouse, new paths and new turf at both houses. The work at Edmund Road was completed in September, and at St Martins more or less in time for our annual Christmas party, and we are now going to take a bit of a break from projects (that’s what you think, Ed).

We got up to London a fair bit, as always, the theatre highlights being ‘The Habit of Art’, ‘Warhorse’, ‘London Assurance’, ‘The 39 Steps’, ‘The Power of Yes’, ‘La Bête’ and ‘Yes, Prime Minister’. We also fitted in a few art exhibitions – the Scottish Colourists at the Fleming, van Gogh, Sandby and the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy, and a visit to Anita Klein’s new studio south of the river (yes, we can slum it as well, Ed). We also went up to London to meet up with Rita and Terry Holliday for a long lunch for the birthday boy (Terry), really enjoyable as we had not managed to get to Weymouth this year as we had intended (hopefully next year, Ed).

Our University of the Third Age (U3A) activities are growing, with one or both of us involved with a number of specialist groups – Meteorology, Maritime, Wine (naturally, Ed), Family History, Local History and Arts; Egyptology awaits. We have also been co-opted on to the Social Committee so we get to organise other events as well and Judith is now able to whip up coleslaw for 120 at the drop of a cabbage. For example, the day we got back from our cruise we went to their Halloween Party, Judith as a glamorous witch with long purple hair, Graeme as a Cardinal (well, you never expect the Spanish Inquisition do you? Ed), and we acted as quiz masters for their annual quiz at the town hall.

Like everybody else we have suffered the snow, ice and freezing fog during December. In addition to the power cuts we had long brownouts that had us running on greatly diminished power and these comprehensively finished off our broadband router so that we had no internet access for over a week – serious withdrawal symptoms for both of us – and, more importantly, the dishwasher, but we managed to get that replaced and installed in only three days. Consolations through all this misery were a fine family lunch at the Great House in Lavenham and, due to the advent of NT Live, the opportunity to watch the Rory Kinnear Hamlet at the Olivier Theatre from the comfort of the Odeon cinema Chelmsford.

Rory has continued to pass exams and progress through his degree course; at time of writing he is acting as a sort of junior GP at a medical practice somewhere north of Derby, and after Christmas (so long as he doesn’t fall off his snowboard and break something, Ed) he will have a few weeks of general surgery. His finals are in March, and from April he will be off to the Western Isles Hospital in Stornoway as part of their psychiatric team for a couple of months. We should mention that he has managed to find time to help out with building jobs for us during the year, in particular he laid the wooden floors and fitted a door at Edmund Road and put up the greenhouse at St Martins, all very much appreciated.

You will be pleased to hear that Archie, our new(ish) male cat is thriving; early in the year he became ‘Andrex Kitten’ so that now we need to keep all possible sources of toilet rolls well locked, and in March he discovered trees, though thankfully that phase lasted only a few weeks. Indie, Fleur and Keith’s feisty female tortoiseshell cat, has taken over their house and on Christmas Eve will be joined by Angus the kitten, aka the Ginger Ninja. As they will all be staying with us for Christmas it may well be that Amber, our senior female tabby cat, will want to leave home…

We hope that this letter will find you all well and fit, and we wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous year in 2011.